


The Drone Disadvange

by unholygrass



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aromantic Asexual Pidge | Katie Holt, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Pidge | Katie Holt Angst, Pidge-Centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 00:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11956347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unholygrass/pseuds/unholygrass
Summary: Pidge suffers the consequences of her previous battle. Allura helps soothe her mind.Sequel to "The Drone Advantage"





	The Drone Disadvange

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to "The Drone Advantage" but I'm pretty sure it can read as a stand alone if you want. I have some killer ideas for new fics so be on the lookout for those. Also I have seen season three now so that was killer.
> 
> If you have any requests send them in!

“Alright. Their vitals are reading out steadily. Now we just let the pods do their jobs.” Coran stepped back from the main console in the center of the room and turned to the others, his eyes giving away how exhausted he was despite his faint smile.

 

“So they're going to be okay?” Keith stepped forward some, eyes trained on the three occupied pods as if they held the secret to defeating the Galra empire itself.

 

“Yes. It will just take time.” Coran places a heavy hand on the red paladin's shoulder before his eyes drift over to Pidge, a familiar frown tugging at his lips.

 

She's standing in front of Shiro's pod, in exactly the same spot that she had been in when the chamber was ordered closed and separated Shiro, Hunk, and Lance from the rest of the world. She felt like her feet were glued to the spot by some unseen magic, and that she was unable to move away from her teammates. In the aftermath of such an extreme and dire battle, stepping back and looking at her frozen friends felt wrong and anticlimactic, and her brain was struggling to catch up with their situation.

 

They had lived. Escaped to Green and rescued by the castle. Wormholed away so they could hide and heal. Her friends were going to get better and everyone was going to be  _ fine- _

 

“Pidge, perhaps it is time for you to join them?” Allura spoke softly behind her and somehow broke the magic that had her trapped in place, and she was able to turn around to face the princess.

 

“What?” Her brain wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders.

 

“You look as though you're going to fall over at any moment. Your head is still bleeding.” Allura was still speaking gently to her, like she was a wounded animal who might lash out at any second. If she thought about it, she probably already had said something scalding while she was helping to load Hunk and Lance into the pods. She tended to have a very sharp tongue when she was frustrated or scared.

 

But normally Allura doesn't put up with Pidge's temper. Usually Allura would snap right back until Pidge was in the right state of mind again.

 

She must really look like shit if Allura is treating her so tenderly.

 

“Oh.” Yeah she's dizzy and maybe a little nauseous, but she'd been so focused on keeping the others safe that she hadn't really had time to assess her own injuries, and now that she can finally take care of herself, she realizes that she's far too tired to.

 

So she decides to trust Allura.

 

“Okay.”

 

Coran herds her towards a bathroom and hands her a pristine white suit, designed to work with the pods for healing. When she takes it she realizes just how filthy her hands are.

 

Getting out of her armor is far more difficult than she would have ever guessed it could be. It's dented in places and coated in a fine layer of blood. Some of it's hers. Some of it's not. Her undersuit sticks to her as though she were made of super glue, adhered to her body from sweat. Thankfully the wound on her head and side seems to be the only things that bled, but once she finally gets a chance to look at herself in the mirror (reflective hologram), she can see a nasty line of mottled bruises wrapping around her stomach and chest. It looks as though she had colored her skin with a purple and black marker then smeared it around as much as possible.

 

Yeah. She had no problem sleeping this off in the pod.

 

After using the restroom she slips into the new body suit and tugs at it until it stops riding up on her, then rejoins the others.

 

She raises her eyebrows at Keith who is still in his paladin armor, asking a silent question.

 

_ Gonna nap in the pod? _

 

“I just need a hot shower and some ibuprofen. I'm okay.” He looks as exhausted as she does, but if he's not ready to block out the rest of the world quite yet, then she can't blame him. Despite the reprieve the healing chambers provide, the idea of handing oneself over to willingly become utterly unknowing to the world is still a frightening one that Pidge battles herself sometimes.

 

“Do you want me to stay out with you?” She doesn't really want to deal with the pain her body is now complaining about, but she will without hesitation if Keith asks. She doesn't necessarily want to leave him alone to stare at his stasis teammates.

 

“No. No, you go. You probably have a nasty concussion. And we need your brain to win this.” He smiles at her, and she knows he's being genuine.

 

So she waves him goodbye and allows Coran to help her step into the pod, eyes closing in time with the glass, and mind drifting into a place where she knows no more.

 

 

Allura was not hovering over her paladins.

 

She wasn't.

 

She was simply watching over their vitals and making sure they rested peacefully in the cryo pods. They certainly deserved that much after the horrors they had been through. They needed to get all the rest they could, and while she knew that the chambers did their jobs exceptionally well, she just couldn't find the will in herself to leave them to tend to the castle.

 

So she lingered here and there, swiping through their vitals and doing a few things here and there that she could accomplish in the Med Bay itself. She replaced linens and healing suits, updated an old identification program, and cleaned the pods that were not in use.

 

She had shooed Keith away so he would clean up and take care of himself, but she knew he would be back sooner rather than later, and Coran had gone to inspect the damage that the Green Lion had required, buzzing her a few times to update her from the lion's hangar on what he was finding.

 

From what she had heard so far, it seemed that it was an utter miracle that the Lion had escaped with the paladins at all. She credits Pidge's strong bond to the lion that had brought team Voltron back to the castle and moves on to more chores before Coran starts shouting again.

 

“Princess! Check on Number Five- her lion is thrashing its tail. She is very agitated!” His sentence ended in a high pitch scream as he ducked out of view from the hologram and something crashed off camera. She stood straight up and rushed over to the information panel. The lions rarely moved without the paladin's prompting, and if the Green lion was destroying things then something was very wrong.

 

She looked up to Pidge's pod, concern bubbling up her throat as she saw Pidge's small body twitching, her head tossed to the side. Despite being across the room, Allura could easily see how the her chest jumped rapidly, as if she couldn't breathe. The panel in front of her wasn't reading out any physiological abnormalities aside from the injuries that Pidge had when she entered the cryopod. By all accounts, she should be okay.

 

“Coran! Come here, I need your help!”

 

And yet as she watches, her youngest paladin only becomes more and more distressed despite being completely unconscious. Allura doesn't know what to do at first- She is not human. She doesn't know the things that she should about their physical forms- but she's forced into action when the panel alarm goes off, announcing that Pidge's heart rate had jumped above one hundred and eighty and her blood pressure was nearing dangerous ranges.

 

_ It looks like he's having a bad dream. _

 

Some ancient spark of memory flashes in her mind, and she realizes that Pidge is dreaming- panicking so badly that she looked to be ill.

 

She had to wake her up.

 

She can hear Coran's footsteps coming down the hall even as she stumbles forward and enters the command to release Pidge from the cryopod. Allura reaches for her as she takes a shuddering breath and her eyes snap open. The horror in them is so tangible that Allura fears that perhaps Pidge was still dreaming- not totally awake.

 

But then Pidge looks directly at her, skin paler than the white suit she was dressed in. Allura watched as her mouth opened, but whatever she was going to say got caught in her throat and only came out as a choked whimper. The princess reached for her- wanting to steady her or hug her or wrap her up and kill anything that dared to ever put that fear in her eyes ever again- but before she could so much as touch her, the younger girl swept beneath her grip and darted out past her, stumbling only slightly on the steps.

 

Allura whipped around just in time to see Pidge go barreling into Coran, who reached out to catch her, which was apparently not the right thing to do because she shoved at him with all the strength in her weakened body- which was still enough force to send the older man careening backwards and away from her.

 

“Pidge! Stop!” Allura dashed after her terrified paladin, only to realize a second later that  _ quiznak she's fast  _ and stopped short next to Coran as she watched Pidge skid to the left and lock herself in a storage compartment down the hall.

 

“She is much stronger than I had guessed.” Coran's surprised voice tugged Allura out of her confusion and she turned to look at him.

 

“She was terrified.” she placed her hand on her chest where she could feel her heart pounding beneath her fingertips, trying to make herself think rationally about how she could help her youngest paladin.

 

“What happened?”

 

“A dream. She was panicking so I woke her up, and she ran.”

 

“Shall I fetch Keith?”

 

“Yeah. I'm going to try and coax her out.”

 

 

“Pidge, I can't do it. I can't sit here anymore. Please open the door!” Allura had tried everything to get her paladin to cooperate. Begging, bribing, lying, loud voices, soft voices- but nothing had gotten her a response.

 

A choked sob echoed under the door and into the hallway, and Allura felt her heart squeeze. She wasn't made for this. She couldn't listen to Pidge’s obvious anguish without doing anything to help soothe her. She had been hoping that perhaps Pidge would cry herself out and slowly calm down enough to open the door. But with each passing minute, the terrified noises only seemed to become more distressed in nature. It was becoming clear that Pidge would not be able to to calm herself on her own, but still had enough stubbornness to keep the door locked. 

 

It’s not until she hears Pidge throw up that she finally abandons talking. 

 

“Pidge! I’m breaking down the door okay? Step back some.” 

 

The doors were  made to withstand attacks of all kinds, but they stood no chance against the wrath of a worried princess. 

 

When she finally steps into the room, it takes her a moment to find Pidge, given that she had never turned on the light, and was apparently sitting in the dark, illuminated only by the dull neon lights that lined the floor of the entire castle. Her youngest paladin was curled up into a ball beneath the sink, a dark shadow on the floor. The room smelled of vomit, but Allura couldn’t tell if it was on Pidge or the floor or had been flushed. 

 

She looked down at the shaking figure beneath her, and felt emotion wash up her throat and strangle her with affinity. 

 

Pidge was the youngest on the team, but she was one of the smartest persons Allura had ever had the opportunity to meet. She was larger than life with her attitude and sass, but she also knew when she needed to step back and follow along in order for the dynamic of the team to work. Allura was always impressed by how mature she was when it came to their missions. She did as she was told but would interject when she had helpful information, and unless she had already been ignored, she wasn’t a smart-aleck about it. She was fierce in a way that Allura had not been expecting when she assigned Pidge the Green Lion, but now that she knew her, it fit her 

 

But now, she realized just how fucking small she was. 

 

And young.

 

She crouches down and looks her over, dismayed by the fact that she can actually see Pidge’s entire body stiffen and hear a low and feral growl rumble in the girl’s chest. While the instinctive part of her brain urges her to back off, the much more rational part of her brain is telling her that it is normal- well, as normal it can be for a paladin- and that it was simply her lion channeling through Pidge’s body because she felt threatened. She had heard of the lions taking control briefly in order to protect their paladins, and she was sure it was the same case here. 

 

“Easy. Easy. It’s just me. Allura.” She lowered her tone and put a bit of space between them, holding her hands up so Pidge could see them. “Can you hear me?”

 

Pidge was still for a long moment, and now that Allura was closer, she could see the way that her paladin was practically vibrating. 

 

After a moment, Pidge nodded. 

 

“Can you look at me?” 

 

She received no recognition this time. She was starting to consider maybe hailing Coran and requesting he bring a sedative to help calm her down, but she wasn’t sure if Pidge would see that as a breach of trust, and so she wasn’t completely ready to consider it as an option yet. 

 

But before she had to make any sort of decision for what to do next, one small shaking hand reached out and gripped her arm.

 

“Pidge?” She kept her voice low in fear of startling her again, but as the moments passed, Allura could see some of her normal bright sheen return to the girl’s eyes. Whatever fearful nightmare had consumed her before seemed to finally be wearing off.

 

“...What am I going to do?” Her voice was so soft that Allura almost missed it entirely due to the way the words seemed to scrape out of Pidge’s throat. 

 

“What do you mean?” If Allura could manage to engage her in any sort of conversation, she was going to nab that opportunity

 

“I mean...” Pidge sat up some, reaching out with her other hand to grip Allura when Allura offered. The princess snatched a nearby towel and reached up into the sink to dampen it before gently wiping away some of the vomit from the girl’s chin. “About.. Everything? I’m...”. She was refusing to meet her eyes, and Allura worried that perhaps Pidge was seeing demons that weren’t actually there. She’d seen Shiro suffer through episode like that many a time, and her stomach squeezed at the idea that even her youngest paladin was finally starting to succumb to the war. 

 

“I’m out here... and, and I don’t really know what I’m doing.” Pidge’s eyes were already red from the strain of throwing up, but now Allura could see panicked tears begins to overflow. “I- I can’t find my brother- I’ve tried everything- I don’t even think my dad’s alive anymore-” A wave of anguish washed over her small body, and Allura was momentarily concerned that her paladin was going to throw up again. 

 

“Pidge. Don’t say that-”

 

“I can’t find my brother and there’s been absolutely no trace of my father and I abandoned my mother back on Earth- I mean, she’s all alone. I just left her there Allura. She’s lost everything and I just left her- and Hunk and Lance almost died tonight- I watched them and if I had fucked up they would have died and it would have been my fault I could have killed my friends- I mean they’re my family now because my family is  _ gone- _ ”

 

Pidge does gag this time, the panic and heartbreak at the sheer thought that her family was dead or ruined overcoming her so quickly that it doubled her in half and Allura had to promptly reach out and grab her so she didn’t smack her head on the wall.

 

“Pidge!” Her paladin was shaking again, but Pidge didn’t pull away when Allura edged closer and lifted her up again.

 

“And- and Green is so clever and powerful  _ and I get my family killed-” _

 

“ _ Pidge!  _ Look at me.  _ Look at me!”  _ Allura leaned forward and firmly gripped the girl’s face in both of her hands. Sure enough, her demanding tone is enough to snap Pidge out of her delirious ramblings and finally make the eye contact that Allura was waiting for. 

 

“ _ Your family is alive.  _ We have footage of your brother! We’ve seen him. We know he’s been rescued. And  _ we will find your father.  _ We have so much technology and capabilities now- we have entire planets who we can send word out to- until every one of our allies knows that your father is to be returned to us. He’s out there,  _ and we’ll find him.” _

 

She hasn’t pulled away from Allura’s grip yet, and she can tell that Pidge is listening to every word with rapt attention. So she scoots closer and pressed against her paladin, hoping to give her another sensation that the girl could focus on so she wasn’t lost again to whatever thunderstorm was rocking through her mind. 

 

“And I do not know your mother, but if she is  _ anything  _ like you, then she is smart enough and strong enough to survive the coming times. You got your bravery from somewhere, and I fully believe that your mother will be okay.”

 

Allura heard Coran return in the hall with Keith in tow, but thankfully they seemed to have the sense to not enter the bathroom. However it seemed that Pidge heard it also, and every muscle on her body tightened once more. 

 

But Allura did not want to give up the ground she had already covered. She wasn’t losing Pidge again. 

 

“Look here- focus on me. Only me.” She waited until she had her full attention once more. “Hunk, Lance, and Shiro are all going to be okay. They are healing. They are alive because you had the skill and the initiative to go and  get them. Do you understand?” She snatched up her wet towel again and gently cleaned to vomit from Pidge’s neck. “You were so brave- and so smart. You  _ do  _ have the skills for this. But you will not have to go through that again. I will come for you myself before I let anything like that happen to you once more. You have your team, and you have me, and we are going to protect you, and ourselves, and we are all going to be  _ fine.”  _

 

Pidge’s shaking had slowed some, and her muscles relaxed while Allura was speaking. She reached out once more and gripped the princess’s arms again.

 

“Okay.” 

 

“Okay?”

 

Pidge nodded once more, a few stray tremors wracking her. “I... sorry... thank you.” She sucked in a shaky breath before rubbing at her face furiously with her hands. Allura was about to help her stand when Pidge threw herself forward and wrapped her arms around the princess’s middle.

 

“ _ Thank you.” _

 

In the end Allura offers Pidge the sedative anyway, due to the fact that any kind of unexpected noise has her shrinking back into herself and the shaking still hasn’t stopped. It will also keep her from dreaming, which is the biggest concern for everyone. She deserved time of rest where she wouldn’t have to battle her largest opponent- her mind. 

 

Two days later, and the cyropods are empty once more. Allura had helped them each from their pods, and hugged them until they complained.

 

And if she held Pidge didn’t complain, she didn’t say anything. 

 

Her paladins were alive and healthy, but now she knew that they would need more time to truly start to heal. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please Review!


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